What it is
Not a laser: filtered broadband light that reaches several targets at once — the surface brown spots and the background redness of sun-damaged skin. Because it is unselective, the skin's own melanin competes with the target for the energy. That makes skin type, recent sun exposure and settings more decisive here than with almost any other device.
What this page covers
- Intense pulsed light photorejuvenation for lentigines, diffuse redness and photodamage on suitable skin types
- Broadband light (BBL) programmes for redness, pigment and acne
- IPL hair reduction where hair is dark and skin is light
- Advice on home-use IPL and laser devices, and treatment of the burns and pigment marks they cause
- IPL for meibomian gland dysfunction, only in coordination with an ophthalmologist and with corneal shielding
Honestly
IPL is the device most often implicated in burns and lasting pigment change in Fitzpatrick IV–VI and it can make melasma worse, so many patients here are better served by a selective laser or by topical treatment, and it is not used on recently tanned skin, on skin threaded or waxed in the last few days, or over steroid-thinned skin.